170 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
anger when he next encountered Dobrynin.^5 He exclaimed that the
American administration did not take kindly to such tactics. The
sooner the Soviet leaders learned the lesson, the better.^6 The members
of the American delegation at the Geneva arms talks shared Shultz’s
feeling of annoyance. Kampelman resented the fact that his Soviet
counterpart Viktor Karpov had not breathed a word about the news
over lunch on the very day when it would be released to the world’s
media.^7 Nitze urged caution about the declaration since he doubted
that Gorbachëv had penned it: ‘I wonder whose work of art on the
Soviet side this is.’^8 Reagan decided on a restrained response to
Moscow. A brief statement appeared in his name: ‘I welcome the
Soviet’s [sic] latest response and hope that it represents a hopeful
further step in the process. We, together with our allies, will give care-
ful study to General Secretary Gorbachëv’s suggestions.’^9
TV and press commentators in the NATO countries exercised a
responsible caution. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and
Washington Post gave a factual summary of Gorbachëv’s declaration
with little editorial comment. They described the Strategic Defense
Initiative as the main obstacle to progress.^10 None of the three news-
papers could see much chance of progress between the superpowers if
the Soviet leader insisted on the President abandoning his great pro-
ject. Time Magazine summed up the viewpoint of sceptics some days
later: ‘Gorbachëv’s plan is an agonizing mixture of the old and the new,
uncertainty and concreteness, regular concessions and old demands.’^11
Ambassador Hartman was unusual in accepting the sincerity of
Soviet concerns and asked for concessions on the Strategic Defense
Initiative in return for the USSR agreeing to cuts in nuclear stock-
piles.^12 There was plainly a need to come to a settled analysis. On 22
January 1986 Shultz appealed to the President to set up a group out-
side the usual inter-agency structures to elaborate policy.^13 Reagan did
not wish to annoy his other leading officials, preferring to seek con-
sensus in the traditional way through the National Security Planning
Group. The Defense Department and CIA offered harsh verdicts on
Gorbachëv.^14 Weinberger and Casey depicted him as remaining com-
mitted to modernizing his strategic nuclear forces and supporting
communist and anti-American insurgency, terrorism and subversion
around the world.^15 They could see no change in the Politburo’s basic
strategy. Weinberger and Casey wanted Reagan to tread cautiously.
As senior officials, they kept quiet about their disapproval of his aim
to eliminate all atomic weapons from the face of the earth. Assistant